Just For Fun

In the past month, the Obama White House has found itself at the center of two new scandals. While one is being (so far) treated as a minor matter, it may later grow in importance once Republicans wake up to the political embarrassment potential for the president. The second scandal is systemic and entrenched, and is going to require a lot of drastic action to fix. How Obama reacts to both the "outing" of the C.I.A. station chief in Afghanistan and the ongoing problems at the Veterans Administration will wind up reflecting on his presidential legacy, for better or worse.

Outing a top C.I.A. spymaster

Let's examine the minor scandal first, since it is easier to see what needs to be done. What happened is not entirely clear at this point, but here are the facts as they are currently known. President Obama just completed a secret trip to visit the troops in Afghanistan over the Memorial Day weekend. The story did not leak out before the trip happened. During the trip, however, a list was prepared of the people Obama had met while in Afghanistan. The Pentagon reportedly put the list together and handed it off to the White House. The White House press office then publicly released the list to their "pool" of White House journalists.

Somehow, the name of the top American spymaster in Afghanistan was included on the list. He was supposed to be undercover, and his name was not supposed to ever become public knowledge. It was an official secret, to put it another way. He was "outed" by including his name on the list.

Now, nobody's saying that this was done intentionally. It was not a "leak" to a reporter to make any sort of point or expose any sort of story. It was an inadvertent mistake -- everyone agrees on this point, so far. But that may not matter, in the end. From the Washington Post, here is how the White House is now reacting to the scandal:

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has instructed the president's chief counsel, W. Neil Eggleston, to examine how the C.I.A. officer's name ended up on a list of U.S. officials who met with Obama in Afghanistan, a document that was then distributed to thousands of journalists and other recipients.

Eggleston has been asked "to look into what happened and report back to [McDonough] with recommendations on how the administration can improve processes and make sure something like this does not happen again," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

The move marks an effort by the White House to assure members of the U.S. intelligence community, as well as the public, that it regards the inadvertent disclosure as a security breach serious enough to warrant attention from high-level officials.

That's all fine and good as far as it goes, but it simply does not go far enough. Revealing C.I.A. undercover officers' names to the press is not just a security breach, it is also a crime. And unless President Obama wants to be accused of brazen hypocrisy, he only has two real actions possible, when the person responsible is ultimately identified by Eggleston. Obama can either issue a blanket pardon, excusing the responsible party from prosecution, or he can hand it off to the Justice Department for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

This may sound harsh. After all, nobody's saying this was done intentionally. A mistake was made, that's all. But that should not matter, legally. American justice is supposed to be blind, meaning two people who committed the same crime should face exactly the same punishment. And the Obama administration has been famously tough on leakers, up to this point. Which really leaves no other option than full prosecution or a blanket pardon. Anything else is sheer hypocrisy. To say nothing of the political motivations involved.

Remember, if you will, how Democrats howled when Valerie Plame Wilson was "outed." They fully supported the prosecution of Scooter Libby (although Richard Armitage -- the guy who actually leaked her name to Robert Novak -- seemed to get a pass, somehow). Leaking a C.I.A. officer's name was seen in a different light politically, when the politics of the situation were reversed (to put it mildly). During Obama's term in office, John Kiriakou was prosecuted by the Justice Department for doing exactly the same thing the White House just did -- leaking a C.I.A. officer's name to the public. He is currently serving 30 months in federal prison.

Constitutionally, there is no difference between those two cases and what happened over the past weekend. Even if the Pentagon slipped up and included the name inadvertently, the White House press office is supposed to vet such a document before release. They didn't. Somebody didn't do their job correctly, and a C.I.A. officer's name was released as a direct result. By the letter of the law, this is criminal behavior.

So far this scandal hasn't really resonated with Republicans, but sooner or later they're going to realize the potential for embarrassing the president politically. A crime was committed -- a crime that merits jail time. Unlike all the previous "scandals" they've been chasing, this one happened within the White House itself. There is no one other than the press office to point the finger at. I expect it won't be long before there are demands for Eric Holder to bring charges.

Which is why Obama really can't brush the whole thing under the rug, with "recommendations on how the administration can improve processes and make sure something like this does not happen again." That's not good enough, in this case. Since a crime was so obviously committed (intentional or not), Obama can either hang someone out to dry in the courts, or issue a pardon. Issuing a pardon might seem extreme, but it would certainly end any talk of prosecution. Obama would have to take a political hit for issuing such a pardon, but it would be a much smaller hit than watching an inattentive press office person being tried for their inadvertent crime. Or the hypocrisy of doing nothing.

The V.A. scandal

The second big scandal isn't going to be so easy to fix, however. The Veterans Administration problems seem to go pretty deep. What is tragically ironic about the situation is that the scandal stems from a system that was put in place to identify and fix long waiting times for veterans. This system was then "gamed" by administrators, destroying its usefulness in solving the main problem.

The Veterans Administration decided to track wait times for all its facilities, because hard data was needed to discover the scope of the problem. This hard data was then supposed to be used to identify problem facilities so they could get some money and attention to improve their services. But administrators at overwhelmed facilities were fearful that their own jobs (and bonuses, reportedly) would be on the line if they showed the true extent of the problem, so they decided to go around the reporting system and keep handwritten lists. If the data isn't entered in the computer, it essentially doesn't exist, they figured. This resulted, according to an interim report issued today, in average wait times in Phoenix of 115 days (almost four months) -- which was 91 days longer than the hospital reported in their official data. The handwritten list grew to over 1,700 veterans waiting for a doctor's appointment. This is nothing short of shameful. It is a breach of the promise America made to these veterans. It needs to be fixed, obviously.

The first question to be raised is whether the current secretary of the Veterans Administration, Eric Shinseki, is the man to fix the problem. He has been tainted by this scandal, perhaps irreparably. Calls for his resignation (or firing) have been coming from politicians from both parties. So far, President Obama has stood by him. Remembering how Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was allowed to remain in her position for six months after the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare website, President Obama seems to be patient enough with his cabinet members to allow them to fix major problems before they step down. However, in this case, that may not be good enough. The Obamacare problem was immediate and new, since it dealt with launching something that had not been done before. The V.A. problem is immediate, but it is not new. It has been going on for a long time, on Shinseki's watch. This may preclude allowing him the latitude to attempt to fix the problem.

Eric Shinseki is a decorated veteran himself, and has an impressive military career behind him. He became liberals' favorite general, after he was the only military official to publicly discredit Donald Rumsfeld's predictions of how many troops would be needed to pacify Iraq (Shinseki predicted that "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed in postwar Iraq, for the effort to be successful). Rumsfeld, at the time, was arguing for a much lighter footprint. So there weren't many Democrats who had a problem with Obama naming him to lead the V.A.

But, as impressive as his military credentials are, he is now so tarnished by the scandal that it is time for him to go. The Obama White House should now be (quietly) conducting a search for someone to replace Shinseki who can cope with the enormity of the problem. In fact, because the V.A. is in crisis, the criteria for the next head should hinge on credentials in hospital administration rather than the more traditional criteria of an impressive military career. The media has been disappointed in Shinseki's refusal to publicly emote about the problems, but what is needed is someone even wonkier -- someone who is not going to bang the table with a fist, but who rather knows how to clean house at a failing hospital system and get things back up and running.

When such a person can be identified, President Obama needs to make the announcement that he has reluctantly accepted Shinseki's resignation and hopes the Senate will quickly confirm a capable administrator who can bring a new era of transparency to the agency. Fixing the problem of wait times may take years (and it may take a lot of money from Congress), but fixing the confidence in the data doesn't need to take more than a few months to a year, at most.

Obama should also announce that, to further this end, he is supporting the current effort in Congress to make it easier to fire hospital administrators within the V.A. system. Furthermore, Obama should announce he will be using this new power to fire every single person he can prove was responsible for deciding to create off-the-books wait lists -- and, where appropriate, he will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

What these people did was, in essence, fraud. They defrauded the federal government which signed their paychecks. They knowingly sent in false data. There are reports that some administrators did so because they wanted bonuses in their paychecks, and knew they wouldn't get them if their facilities' wait times were too high. This is (or at least should be) criminal behavior.

Obama should announce that the new V.A. chief will be given instructions to start at the bottom and work their way upwards through the chain of command -- as high as the trail leads. The people doing data entry who didn't enter data correctly at least have the excuse "this is how I was told to do it." Perhaps they shouldn't be outright fired, but instead given the option of another federal job at the same pay grade but without a position of public trust -- say, counting polar bears in Alaska or working at some remote warehouse sorting military surplus items. Give them the choice of transferring to a menial position with no real responsibility, or quitting.

Further up the chain, however, people should not only be fired but also investigated for past bonuses awarded and for defrauding the government. If the decision was made by a high-ranking administrator to perpetrate this fraud, then criminally charge them and sue them in civil court to regain any such bonuses they received.

Veterans deserve no less.

Within six months to (at most) a year, mass firings will send the message to every other person working for the V.A., loud and clear: this behavior is absolutely unacceptable and there will be serious consequences. My guess is it won't even take that long for this message to sink in. The data, within a year, will begin to be trustworthy and reliable. Remember, the whole purpose of this data is to identify problem facilities in order to fix them. If you can't identify them, you're never going to be able to fix them.

At some point, a new promise also needs to be made to America's veterans. President Obama, with the new V.A. head by his side, needs to announce that every single time a veteran contacts the V.A. for any reason -- whether in person, over the phone, or in writing -- that contact will be properly logged. No matter who the veteran contacts in the entire V.A. organization, his or her file will be complete and immediately accessible via computer. If there are excessive wait time problems with any individual veteran, it will be obvious by the entries in this file. That is the absolute least that should be promised to all veterans, in fact.

This is the type of effort which pretty much demands a new hand at the helm, though. Shinseki's exit will make it possible for the clean-up to begin.

Conclusion

President Obama is facing two scandals right now. He needs to act, on both of them. These are not pseudo-scandals that his political opponents are ginning up in an effort to smear Obama, these are actual scandals that need to be dealt with.

The Obama administration has been one of the toughest in all of American history on leakers of secret data. To be even minimally consistent with this posture, they need to acknowledge that a crime was committed by the White House press office, no matter how inadvertent it was. The choice for action is clear. Either prosecute the person responsible, or pardon them for the crime they unintentionally committed. Anything less -- any effort to quietly sweep this under a rug -- is nothing short of hypocrisy, and a slap in the face to the concept of blind justice.

The bigger scandal at the Veterans Administration is going to last longer, due to the systemic nature of the problem (at least at some facilities). Fixing the problem needs to happen in three stages. The first is for Obama to accept Eric Shinseki's resignation, and announce a capable administrator with experience in large hospital systems will be taking his place. The second is to purge the ranks of anyone involved in defrauding the government with falsified data (including prosecutions for higher-ups, where appropriate). This will fix the data itself, and guarantee that such falsification never happens again. The third phase is the toughest, because it will require the cooperation of Congress. The data itself isn't the problem, it is the wait times that was the problem the data was created to identify. Fixing long wait times is going to require either hiring more doctors at certain facilities, or building some new hospitals within the same geographic area as the problem facilities, to better spread the load of patients. That is going to require some funding, obviously.

The president can act decisively on his own to solve the V.A.'s leadership problem and the data problem. Politically, this would do him a world of good. But Republicans, if they're smart, could benefit politically as well. Rather than the "Benghazi Summer" that House Republicans have planned, they would benefit more from an extended congressional investigation into the problems at the V.A. -- not just the falsification of data, but also the underlying problem of providing the appropriate care to our veterans. It's pretty hard to be against caring for veterans, so if Republicans emerged as the champion and savior of the Veterans Administration it would likewise do them a world of good politically.

76 Comments on “Obama's New Scandals”

[1]

goode trickle wrote:

Interesting take on the two "things" out there.

As for the leaking in "thing" one I would posit the point of view that perhaps the republicans will make some small amount of hay but overall will walk away from it as it would set a standard, albeit an ethical one, that simply is unpalatable to them as it would force a future president from their party to live up to that standard. Overall my point of view should not be construed as leaning left or right, but more of one that is reinforced by the overall behavior of both parties to allow the expansion of executive powers for better or for worse, but not wanting to speak up out of fear that once they try to close the "box" it will overly impact "their" guy once they get into office. Both parties have a well documented proclivity for ignoring these "little" things.
I do however like the concept and would vigorously support government actually enforcing it's own laws on itself.

As for "thing" two, I agree wholeheartedly that a change is required at the top of the VA, and to some extent this is the one that the right could use to really embarrass Obama as to some extent they could spin it to become the "Brown" of his administration. To be clear Shinseki is a very highly decorated and well respected general, but, does not posses the skill set to operate a agency that is primarily dedicated to medical purposes. If the right gets their act really together that is the tact they will take and they will get the bonus of destroying an honorable man who has been a thorn in their side and well the left will participate as usual as they have no spine or ability to coordinate their message to bring proper perspective to the situation.

While the president can act decisively to fix many of the problems in the VA, the one thing he cannot fix is the money issues, only congress can do that. Unfortunately Obama has a poor track record of using the bully pulpit to get congress to do what is right, and in this particular case should apply to both parties. If the president was smart he would not only accept the resignation of Shinseki he would use to bully pulpit to force both parties to provide the funding required to make the required systemic changes and to effectively treat the number of vets in the system, after all to some extent most stories on this are overlooking the fact that as a whole the system is grossly underfunded and has "no pay as you go" requirements for funding when you send our troops into conflict. The other under reported fact is that both parties are guilty of using the funding for vets benefits as a vehicle to retain their pet "pentagon" projects, the republicans are always saying they are the party of the vets and the dems are constantly crying about what the repubs are doing to vets but at the end of the day they fall into line and fail to fund the system appropriately as that would hurt some rich donor, which in turn hurts them.

In my opinion if Obama really wants to fix the system he would use the bully pulpit to shame congress into doing what is right by investigating the system in a fair and bipartisan manner and by finally fully funding and living up to the promises made to vets when they enlisted. Sure in the short term Obama's "legacy" takes a hit, however, if done right in the long term his legacy becomes large by finally being the guy who made congress live up to fulfilling the promises made to vets.

Unfortunately neither congress or the president will end up doing what is right for vets as it does not benefit the ones who bought them nor does it make for that snappy and zesty sound bite which for some reason is more important than doing what is right.

After all, nobody's saying this was done intentionally. A mistake was made, that's all. But that should not matter, legally. American justice is supposed to be blind, meaning two people who committed the same crime should face exactly the same punishment.

No. Many crimes have intent as part of the definition. Even for those that don't, judges normally can take intent into consideration during sentencing.

Regarding the "outing" of the CIA officer. I have read that the statute makes it illegal to "intentionally" reveal the name of an operative. If that is the case, then no crime was committed (unlike the Valerie Plame case, where she was intentionally outed for purely political reasons). So some research into the exact wording of the law is required.

Either prosecute the person responsible, or pardon them for the crime they unintentionally committed. Anything less -- any effort to quietly sweep this under a rug -- is nothing short of hypocrisy, and a slap in the face to the concept of blind justice.

I am also constrained to point out that this hypocrisy extends to all of the Left..

Ya'all remember the outcry over the Plame outing... The Left was apoplectic about it...

This outing from the Obama White House?? Outside of Weigantia.... Not a word..

And Plame was just some low-level grunt...

Obama's White House out'ed a STATION CHIEF!!

There has to be consequences for this.

If there isn't, then it will become clear to even the most fervent and hysterical ObamaBot that Obama's Administration simply can't be trusted...

From Fast and Furious at the ATF to the Pigford fraud at the Department of Agriculture, the IRS’ political targeting to the State Department’s Benghazi mess, the healthcare.gov debacle at HHS to spying at the NSA and the DOJ, President Obama is running out of agencies and departments to defend in his two years left in office.

The truth Democrats don’t want you to know is that these scandals are not about racism or Republicans or obstruction votes or even President Obama.
They are about the collapse of a big-government bureaucracy that consistently lets you down, but which the left depends on to keep your vote.

As for "thing" two, I agree wholeheartedly that a change is required at the top of the VA, and to some extent this is the one that the right could use to really embarrass Obama as to some extent they could spin it to become the "Brown" of his administration. To be clear Shinseki is a very highly decorated and well respected general, but, does not posses the skill set to operate a agency that is primarily dedicated to medical purposes. If the right gets their act really together that is the tact they will take and they will get the bonus of destroying an honorable man who has been a thorn in their side and well the left will participate as usual as they have no spine or ability to coordinate their message to bring proper perspective to the situation.

Ya'all remember the outcry over the Plame outing... The Left was apoplectic about it...

As CW himself pointed out in his commentary... :D

Also credit where credit is due...

Beyond the perfunctory "the problem has been going on for decades" I am heartened to see that CW didn't take the easy way out and blame Bush specifically, as Pelosi and other Democrat (so-called) "leaders" have done...

Irregardless of how long this has been a problem, Obama OWNS this this scandal..

It's ALL on Obama because Obama KNEW there was a problem, even before he was POTUS. Senator Obama **CITED** this problem on more than one occasion..

The current VA scandal can be laid DIRECTLY at Obama's feet and anyone who says different is just trying to cover Obama's ass...

From your reply to Dan (dsws) over at HuffPost:As for your other point, note I didn't say two people should get the same sentence always, but they should "face exactly the same punishment." Facing a possible sentence means (to me, I admit it wasn't that clear) being tried under the same law. But it is indeed up to the judge to take extenuating circumstances into the sentence itself.

I think that is a HUGE point in the context of your piece and one that I'm glad you made clear in your reply to Dan.

It's precisely the point I make when, for example, I suggest that the use of torture should never be justified or condoned and that if an experienced and trained investigator should ever deem its use to be the only possible way to gain information that will prevent the imminent loss of innocent life then they should always be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and face the punishment for such an offense, understanding that the penalty received may be mitigated by a judge as extenuating circumstances are taken into account.

I don't know what all of the extenuating circumstances are in this latest case of defense information ending up in the public domain but they appear to be very different from each of the two cases you cite in your piece. Taking into account the extenuating circumstances when applying a penalty for criminal behavior is also part of the letter of the law and, I would argue, it is what makes all three cases VERY different.

I think the options that you set out for President Obama are the appropriate ones and I think your choice may be the best one.

"I'll be a President who ensures that America serves our men and women in uniform as well as they've served us, and that's why I'm proud to have the support of these veterans advising me on the issues facing our troops and veterans.

After seven years of an Administration that has stretched our military to the breaking point, ignored deplorable conditions at some VA hospitals, and neglected the planning and preparation necessary to care for our returning heroes, America's veterans deserve a President who will fight for them not just when it's easy or convenient, but every hour of every day for the next four years."
-Senator Barack Obama, November 2007

Apparently, lying is nothing new with this POTUS...

Waiting for cries of "Can we just ignore who is to blame and worry about fixing the problem!!??"

All systems are gamed by people within them. Not necessarily a bad thing, efficiency and innovation often result. Auditing is supposed to detect gaming in the yellow and red zones, so managers can take corrective actions. Well conceived systems recognize managers and auditors are key points of system vulnerability by way of ineffectiveness/incompetence (e.g. Shinseki and the auditors) or just plain malfeasance (e.g. book cooking VA employees looking for bonuses). The press is lasering in on the incompetency and villainy parts right now, because it makes for a simple narrative.

Ultimately, I think the real culprit at the VA is going to be lack of empowerment and transparency. People simply behave better when they know other people are watching them, and are free to communicate what they see without undue fear of retribution. Not so much whistle blowing, more like, "hey, this is wrong boss, I'm not going to do it, and your manager won't stand for it when I bring it to his or her attention."

The fish rots from the head. The problems at the VA were shielded due to a lack of accountability among our elected officials who are supposed to be monitoring the performance of the VA system. Were their no complaints to Congress or POTUS from the thousands of veterans waiting in queue to get a doctor? I doubt it, I know vets who have been complaining about it for years, from Vietnam, to Desert Storm to today. Elected officials, the President, Senate and House and house oversight committees should have noticed the discrepancies between their mail and the comforting statistics they were reading in the cooked reports. I'm afraid it's much too easy to squelch doubt about the happy talk in the money driven fog that drives the priorities of our elected officials, Blue and Red.

It may be very hard to pinpoint where the gross negligence lies. The person asked to clear the list might not have the right list. Nobody may be updating the list on a regular enough basis. Possibly because people are busy, especially people with high enough security clearance to take on this otherwise mundane, secretarial task. There is no double checking of list, or the ultimate the release. All this insecurity has been built into the system for years. The person who set the system up died five years ago, or is in assisted living somewhere in the states. Nobody has noticed how sloppy the system is because it never failed before, or because people failed to notice that failed.

The VA suffers from the same fundamental problem that all USA medicine does: slow patient access caused by too many specialists and not enough gate keeper GPs to get people to the right specialist.

There is no quick or cheap fix for this, politicians have over promised what the VA health care system can deliver to vets. Not the first time vets have been shafted by a failure to plan for what happens after they come home.

As many of these initial reports on VA problems came out during the final years of the Bush administration, are you going to regale us with links to your long posts holding Bush responsible or do you only do that if a D is after the name?

Contrary to your snippy comment in the Memorial day thread, I think the real reason Chris found the subject depressing is the government has neglected veterans pretty much since they came home from the revolutionary war. It is not Bush's fault, but just about every president regardless of party all the way back to the beginning of the country.

Personally I would like to see what Obama did to address this problem. If he did nothing since being sworn in in 2009 then he deserves a lot of flack for it. If he tasked Shinseki to fixing the problem and he failed, then he deserves some flack for the problem for not checking up. The question I don't see answered is how is the VA system as a whole? In places where they did not try and game the system, did waiting times improve with this reporting policy? How wide spread is the cheating? The VA is huge. My father gets his medical care through the VA and there are quite a few facilities in the Bay Area alone. My father also has not had waiting problems at all. So when a single facility is singled out, I'm curious as to what percentage of total facilities have this problem. Just holding up the bad without looking at the entire picture is playing politics and won't solve the problems...

As many of these initial reports on VA problems came out during the final years of the Bush administration, are you going to regale us with links to your long posts holding Bush responsible or do you only do that if a D is after the name?

Sure..

If you can point to commentaries here in Weigantia that took Bush to task for the VA issues, you can bet that my name would figure prominently in the comments assailing Bush right alongside everyone else...

Contrary to your snippy comment in the Memorial day thread, I think the real reason Chris found the subject depressing is the government has neglected veterans pretty much since they came home from the revolutionary war. It is not Bush's fault, but just about every president regardless of party all the way back to the beginning of the country.

And yet, NO ONE wants to blame Obama for it, yet everyone up to AND INCLUDING OBAMA blamed Bush for it..

THAT's the point you don't want to address...

NOW ya'all have a "real" scandal to deal with...

And ya'all STILL want to pass the buck and pretend that Obama is not responsible..

Personally I would like to see what Obama did to address this problem. If he did nothing since being sworn in in 2009 then he deserves a lot of flack for it.

Then start giving Obama flack..

Because it's clear that NOTHING was done because things are WORSE than ever before...

The question I don't see answered is how is the VA system as a whole? In places where they did not try and game the system, did waiting times improve with this reporting policy? How wide spread is the cheating? The VA is huge. My father gets his medical care through the VA and there are quite a few facilities in the Bay Area alone. My father also has not had waiting problems at all. So when a single facility is singled out, I'm curious as to what percentage of total facilities have this problem.

More than 26 facilities across the country have been named as have "systemic" problems.. Dozens more likely have problems but were not identified..

All of this is publicly known, if you took the time to find out instead of working to cover Obama's ass....

Just holding up the bad without looking at the entire picture is playing politics and won't solve the problems...

But that's what ya'all did during the Bush years... Now that your Messiah is looking like the turkey, NOW all of the sudden you don't want to play politics anymore...

Well, cry me a river....

Like I said.. Ya'all set the rules..

Now ya'all don't want to play by those rules...

Why is that???

"Charlie, I need to talk to you."
"I know. Why is that??"
-TWO AND A HALF MEN

If you can point to commentaries here in Weigantia that took Bush to task for the VA issues, you can bet that my name would figure prominently in the comments assailing Bush right alongside everyone else...

The subject at hand has never stopped you from going off topic before...

And yet, NO ONE wants to blame Obama for it, yet everyone up to AND INCLUDING OBAMA blamed Bush for it..

THAT's the point you don't want to address...

NOW ya'all have a "real" scandal to deal with...

Actually I have just given conditions for such but have yet to see a complete picture as to where Obama falls in it...

More than 26 facilities across the country have been named as have "systemic" problems.. Dozens more likely have problems but were not identified..

Exactly. 26 + 36? Not sure what "dozens" mean, but compared to 1700 total facilities. That is about 4% of total. Lets get a complete picture before getting hysterical...

Remember, if you will, how Democrats howled when Valerie Plame Wilson was "outed." They fully supported the prosecution of Scooter Libby (although Richard Armitage -- the guy who actually leaked her name to Robert Novak -- seemed to get a pass, somehow). Leaking a C.I.A. officer's name was seen in a different light politically, when the politics of the situation were reversed (to put it mildly).

We need to keep in mind that, in the Plame case, NO ONE was prosecuted or even charged for outing a CIA agent..

That's because the facts show that the outing of Plame was as much a mistake as the outing of the Afghanistan Station Chief...

Therefore, there really isn't ANY difference between the Plame outing and the current outing..

Which, no doubt, pisses the Left off to no end...

So, any of ya'all that want to keep your principles intact, feel free to condemn the Obama Administration as forcefully and as completely as ya'all condemned the Bush Administration, satisfied in the knowledge that both incidents are virtually identical..

CW, you are wrong. Political spin and damage control do not equate to governance or management. Trying to prosecute anyone who might unknowingly violate a law the same as anyone who knowingly does is not fair or just. The identities of under over operatives are SECRET. What makes you believe the vetters of the press release knew who was undercover?

Our entire system of justice is based on the fact that equality doesn't automatically mean fairness. Particularly blind equality that's indifferent to the actual facts. The outing of Plame was an intentional act of political retribution undertaken because she was undercover.

You seem to think either it doesn't matter if the outers knew he was undercover, that simply outing him is a crime. There's a reason our laws consider intent. We don't want a legal system where everyone is arbitrarily subject to the will of the State. Laws must serve a legitimate government interest and be reasonable. That's why prosecutors, grand juries, and judges all have discretion instead of having some computer administer justice based on answers o a questionnaire. Prosecuting someone for disclosing the name of an undercover agent they didn't know was an under over agent isn't justice. Isn't fair. Isn't reasonable. And isn't legal.

There is no current indication of any crimes having been committed. When Plame was outed Bush declared that if laws were broken people would be prosecuted and implored everyone to await the investigation. And he WAS given that space. It was AFTER the investigation when it WAS proven Plame was intentionally, and illegally, outed, when Bush reneged on his promise and pardoned the lawbreakers, that he was rightfully pilloried. Your calls for prosecution regardless of the investigations conclusions aren't remotely equal treatment.

Same for your position on Shinseki and the VA. You join the Republican chorus in wanting to punish Shinseki for the actions o subordinates who willfully and intentionally deceived him. Throwing him out does nothing to address the problem. It would only prevent addressing the problem, and delay addressing the problem. NOTHING about replacing executive management will prevent misconduct by upper management. Yes, Obama and Shinseki are responsible. They are responsible for addressing and resolving the problem, not magically insuring no problems ever arise.

That delusion is as much a fantasy as your contention that ANYTHING Obama could do would get Republicans to increase funding for the VA. The Republicans instituted two wars lasting over a decade that they have absolutely refused to pay for. The influx of veterans into an underfunded VA being bur ONE example.

Instead of your knee-jerk damage control and self deluded utopian kumbayah solutions, lets try to stay in the real world. If you really care about veterans then advocate for the IG investigation, reactive and proactive steps based on their recommendations, prosecutions where appropriate and legislation where needed. But if all you want to do is pose and posture like everyone else, at veterans' expense, to sway voters and stoke partisanship, then stay with the scapegoat Shinseki and pretend to be outraged approach.

Chris: you are assuming either deliberate intent or gross negligence on the part of someone in the "leaking" situation and one or both may turn out to be right. But until there's evidence it seems a bit premature to be leaping to judgement about what should happen to the culprit. I think Obama's step of first finding out what actually happened is sensible and defensible, and then the appropriate penalty should then follow based on what they find out.

Re: the VA, Shinseki would certainly be culpable if, having discovered these problems he did nothing to solve them. But it appears that the problems have just come to light -- exactly what is it he's supposed to have done before now? For as long as I can remember the VA has been both lauded and disdained, with all sorts of claims made both about the quality of service provided (according to many - excellent), and lack of it due to the continuous underfunding it has suffered from for years. Much like Michale thinking the President is personally responsible for IRS reviews undertaken by an office in Cincinnati, Ohio. you seem to think that Shinseki should have known these events were taking place in Phoenix.

Maybe I missed something here, and I can't claim to have followed this story super closely, but is there evidence that something-rotten-was-happening-in-Phoenix that Shinseki knew about for years and sat on? Was he doing the Vatican dance where everyone knows priests are abusing children and engaged in all sorts of measures to cover it up? Is this a Joe Paterno situation?
Those kinds of situations would make a call for his resignation more reasonable.

But if he's learning at the same time everyone else is that bad stuff is happening in a particular facility because a review or whatever brought it to light, why is he at fault exactly? For not "changing the culture?" a culture that gives bonuses based on reaching certain numbers -- a problem that crops up pretty much everywhere? For not changing the economy so that people working at the VA in Phoenix might not need their bonuses? Or change the culture so that those people might not simply want their bonuses?

To me all this emphasis on Shinseki seems like a handy way for Congress, in particular, to deflect attention from their own criminal neglect of Veteran's issues. And this idea that making people resign "sends a message" -- of what, precisely? It's just another gesture, just like all sorts of powerful people yapping about how much they value our military while they go their merry way continuously screwing people who serve?

It could be that Shinseki is incompetent and should be relieved on that basis. Is there evidence for that? Will the Veterans be better served by bringing someone else in to take over? How long will that take? How long does it take for a person to be up and running in such a position? If Shinseki is NOT incompetent, wouldn't it be better for him to dedicate himself to fixing problems once they're uncovered?

What part of the word "pardon" do you not understand? There were no prosecutions after the Plame investigation because Bush refused to allow amy. He LIED! HE promised the American people that if any wrongdoing were uncovered he'd have "zero tolerance." After the investigation he issued blanket pardons so no one could be prosecuted.

Where's the guilty until proven innocent jump to conclusions? The investigation found probable cause. Bush covered it up. Bush LIED. Your eager to condemn Obama without probable cause, without investigation. You keep parroting the false mantra that "Obama LIED!" But you are STILL defending Bush?! Still making your totally absurd false equivalencies?

I'm not the one that's blindly partisan. I'm not the one who's a complete hypocrite with no credibility, constantly making deliberate misrepresentations and false assertions.--THAT would be YOU!

If your reading of the law is so cut and dried why aren't you calling for the prosecution of the reporters and media outlets who published the name? THEY ste the ones who outer him. By your logic it doesn't matter WHY they outed him. Your biases ate just as evident as Michale's.

So far this looks like a procedural problem, not s criminal matter. It appears no one who knew he was station chief, and what that means, vetted the list before the press office got it. The problem isn't that the Station Chief's name was treated any differently than anyone elses, its that it wasn't!--And should have been.

Expecting that everyone and anyone who saw his name would know who and what he was is absurd. The whole point is that his name and position were a secret!

Getting rid of Shinseki will mean the VA has no administrator and no hope of ever getting one until at least 2017 because Republicans will use every tactic available to them to block every possible nomination.

Chris: you are assuming either deliberate intent or gross negligence on the part of someone in the "leaking" situation and one or both may turn out to be right.

No, CW is saying that it doesn't MATTER.

As far as the VA issue, here is the complete unfettered story..

During the FEMA debacle, ya'all blamed Bush.. And ya'all came down on the head of FEMA like a ton of bricks..

During the VA debacle not only do ya'all NOT blame Obama, ya'all don't even hold the head of the VA responsible... Under Obama, it's some low level flunky who is to blame..

You see the point??

Bush is responsible for EVERYTHING...

Obama is responsible for NOTHING...

There is a word for that.. It's called hypocrisy...

LD,

What part of the word "pardon" do you not understand? There were no prosecutions after the Plame investigation because Bush refused to allow amy. He LIED! HE promised the American people that if any wrongdoing were uncovered he'd have "zero tolerance." After the investigation he issued blanket pardons so no one could be prosecuted.

NO ONE was prosecuted for the out'ing...

Therefore Bush did not lie because he did not pardon anyone for the out'ing..

Getting rid of Shinseki will mean the VA has no administrator and no hope of ever getting one until at least 2017 because Republicans will use every tactic available to them to block every possible nomination.

That's a good point, but the blame for that falls completely and utterly in the lap of Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats..

Harry wanted to play with his shiny nuke without realizing the consequences...

Shinseki's resignation is not just a moot point. Once again veterans suffer because of the indifference of Republicans who in particular, and the rest of the country in general. Veterans are DYING due to delays in obtaining healthcare. Shinseki's resignation means continued delays AND VETERANS' DEATHS because Republicans were more concerned with scoring political points than protecting veterans' lives.--Now THAT'S a "scandal."--And EXACTLY why this problem exists.

It is, insofar as the discussion of whether Shinseki should resign or not is concerned..

Once again veterans suffer because of the indifference of Republicans who in particular, and the rest of the country in general. Veterans are DYING due to delays in obtaining healthcare. Shinseki's resignation means continued delays AND VETERANS' DEATHS because Republicans were more concerned with scoring political points than protecting veterans' lives.--Now THAT'S a "scandal."--And EXACTLY why this problem exists.

And the fact that it was a BI-PARTISAN call for Shinseki to resign means nothing to you...

The fact that MANY Democrats also called for Shinseki to go seems to belay your case that it's all Republicans fault..

I mean, isn't BI-PARTISANSHIP what ya'all want???

This is a PERFECT example of the kind of Bi-Partisanship that gets things done..

Your "message" has been sent. "If there's a problem beyond your control, instead of receiving the support and resources needed to address it, you'll be personally scapegoated."--And you wonder why there's a culture of ass-covering cover-ups?!--I'll tell you why.--Message received! Loud and clear.

And now we'll get see just exactly how the holier-than-thou republicans leap to ensure that a "better leader" will be installed immediately and given all the tools he/she needs to get to the bottom of this problem. I'm sure they'll pony up with the dough as well because they care so much about veterans and the VA.

Your "message" has been sent. "If there's a problem beyond your control, instead of receiving the support and resources needed to address it, you'll be personally scapegoated."--And you wonder why there's a culture of ass-covering cover-ups?!-

Ohhh puulleeese, cry me a river...

That "message" you are referring to was sent LOUD AND CLEAR from the LEFT during the Bush years...

You act like this is something new and never seen before...

Cover Your Ass is a syndrome that long predates even MY entry in the military some 4 decades ago...

The only reason you are pissy about it now is because it's DEMOCRATS who are being kicked to the curb...

The LEFT *loved* it when it was the Right being kicked to the curb...

Now that it's Democrats who are being kicked, all of the sudden the whine factor crescendos...

And now we'll get see just exactly how the holier-than-thou republicans leap to ensure that a "better leader" will be installed immediately and given all the tools he/she needs to get to the bottom of this problem. I'm sure they'll pony up with the dough as well because they care so much about veterans and the VA.

No. The message that I am sending is that you, and the Republicans don't give a damn if veteran die as long as they get to win a news cycle with cheap shots. Your feeble attempts to justify your despicable actions with false Bush equivalencies and fantasies of people trying to shift blame on to Bush, notwithstanding.

Congress controls the purse strings. Repubs have voted over and over again to keep funds from going to all sorts of places where it is needed. OR, they blocked to keep votes from happening at all.

Pubs control the House and have deliberately, with malice aforethought, obstructed every step of the way.

As LewDan noted, repubs will take a News Cycle over human welfare every day of the week.

The proof will be in the pudding -- we will see exactly how constructive the repubs are going forward. We will see exactly what they do, what they vote for, what resources they approve and supply, to help the Veterans to which they offer so much lip service. Looking forward to their change of heart and willingness to do what is needed. Can't wait!

Shinseki has resigned. Now the VA has no leadership. Oh some poor sod will become "Acting" with limited authority to do anything with a whole load of "Actings" under him or her. It won't be effective leadership and there won't be a replacement for a very long time. The Republicans will crow about it and, of course, fundraise off of it but it's the vets who lose.

Shinseki has resigned. Now the VA has no leadership. Oh some poor sod will become "Acting" with limited authority to do anything with a whole load of "Actings" under him or her. It won't be effective leadership and there won't be a replacement for a very long time. The Republicans will crow about it and, of course, fundraise off of it but it's the vets who lose.

Democrats are in control of the Government...

Obama knew that the VA suffered from "deplorable conditions" even before he was POTUS..

I'll ask again..

How is ANY Of this the fault of Republicans??

Newsflash for ya'all...

Contrary to ya'alls beliefs, not EVERYTHING bad about this country is the fault of Republicans..

The problem with the VA system right now is that, for an entire decade, we sent people into the meat grinder of a war the architects of which conducted completely off the books. They kept it off the books used to keep the federal budget, and they did all they could to keep it off the books of the nation's moral conscience as well. They lied and they cooked their estimates on everything far worse than did the likely criminals who fudged the documentation at the hospital in Phoenix. The whole country was awash in the moral equivalent of a Ponzi scheme, all glistening and shiny and bedecked in bunting. Meanwhile, the physical, financial, and moral cost of it all built up and built up until the scheme got bigger and more complicated and, ultimately, it became untenable. And now, the people who launched it in the first place are tut-tutting about what happened when the whole thing finally collapsed. The one thing to remember about a Ponzi scheme is that the people who get in first get paid off. They got their war. They profited from the double-entry bookkeeping they kept on the national conscience and, now, there's a Democratic president, and a whole lot of injured veterans, who end up holding the bag.

I do see the veterans scandal with a very long view, it is true. I don't know what the guys in Korea (or before) went through, but I saw what the Vietnam Vets went through, in the 1970s and 1980s in particular. It wasn't pretty. Homelessness, neglect, and Reagan dumping the mentally ill out onto the streets. With the Gulf War (Iraq War I, one might call it), it was Gulf War Syndrome being ignored. With Iraq (II) and Afghanistan, it was PTSD being ignored (which actually has a LONG and shameful history in America's treatment of veterans, all the way back to when they called it "shell shock"). Hell, you can go back to the Revolutionary War veterans who held Congress hostage to their demands for what was promised them (look into why Congress left Philadelphia for the last time).

So, no, I don't see this as solely Obama's problem, or Bush's problem, or Democrats' problem, or Republicans' problem. It's universal, in fact. And it's shameful.

Obama may "own" this scandal, as you put it, but Bush certainly didn't do anything about it either. Shinseki did improve the VA in several important ways -- I bet you'd even admit that, after a beer or two -- but failed in this respect, certainly.

Now that Shinseki's gone, what I hope is that the problem itself will be investigated and solved for good.

LizM [11] -

We are on the same wavelength, whether about the leak or about torture. I've always said torturers should be tried and be able to explain why they did what the did and the circumstances involved. If they make a good case (as they say) "no jury would convict them."

In Obama's case, I take it a step further. The only reason I hold him to such a high standard in this particular case is because he has been so harsh on leakers in other cases. For example, the only people to serve time in jail over CIA torture have been the people that leaked it to the press -- not the people who did it or authorized it. But to be both fair and consistent, since the Obama White House has been so aggressive in prosecuting leaks (especially under the Espionage Act), then they have to hold their own people to the same standard.

Got an explanation? Make it to the judge and jury. But if the crime is prosecutable in one instance, it better damn well be the same in every instance. That was really my main point, although I don't think I made it very well in this article.

TheStig [15] -

I actually think this is part and parcel of the Obamacare website problems. To sum it up: the federal government does a terrible job in setting up computer systems. They are always horribly out of date, and horribly inefficient (compared to, say, the way Silicon Valley would tackle the same problems).

The best idea I heard in the Obamacare website fiasco was to set up a much more nimble "Federal Information Systems Agency" of some sort, to provide computer support across the entire federal govenment, so they don't wind up with systems that would have been an embarrassment even back in 1985. I still believe that's true.

Michale [19] -

There is a big difference between "heckuva job" Brownie and Shinseki, though. One was a horse breeder with no practical experience whatsoever for the job he was appointed to. The other was a 4-star general who left part of his foot on a Vietnam battlefield, and had reached the highest rank of any Japanese-American ever. Speaking just to the military man in you, which of these would you appoint to a federal agency that people need to depend upon? That is a big difference, right there.

BashiBazouk [28] -

I've heard something like 42 hospitals are under investigation, out of something like 1,800 VA facilities across the country. If those numbers are right (done from memory, I admit), that is something like 2-and-a-third percent. And I have to agree with:

Contrary to your snippy comment in the Memorial day thread, I think the real reason Chris found the subject depressing is the government has neglected veterans pretty much since they came home from the revolutionary war. It is not Bush's fault, but just about every president regardless of party all the way back to the beginning of the country.

Wholeheartedly, in fact.

:-)

Michale [29] -

All of this is publicly known, if you took the time to find out instead of working to cover Obama's ass....

That's unfair. BashiBazouk even wrote, within his comment: "It is not Bush's fault..." and then he finished with a very neutral paragraph essentially asking for more information about what happened. I think you owe Bashi an apology, as he seems to be being a lot more fair than you are in this case. Go back and read comment [28] and see if you overreacted.

Michale [33] -

OK, now you're in tinfoil hat territory. Three in 100 facilities came up with their own way to game the system, and there has to be a nationwide conspiracy? Really? The orders "HAD to come from higher up"??

Seriously, dude, have another beer and take a deep breath...

LewDan [35] -

See my answer to LizM [11], above. It's about consistency and blind justice. Obama has prosecuted more people under the Espionage Act than I think all previous presidents combined (at least in modern times). If he's going to be such a stickler for the letter of this law, then he has to be consistent when applied to his own aides. Whoever gets Pentagon lists should indeed be versed in who is secret and who isn't.

Read up on what happened to Richard Armitage (not much), because he was seen as unintentionally leaking. Scooter Libby wasn't prosecuted for it, because even Bush wouldn't go that far. Then read up on what happened to John Kiriakou under Obama. Obama has set a higher bar for this area of the law. To be consistent, he should pardon the underling in his press office. But sweeping it under the rug is not blind justice in any way.

See that link in my comment [4]. Ten years in prison, with no "intent" at all -- just for negligence. THAT is the letter of the law. And it is indeed legal to prosecute using that part of the statute.

Do I think some press underling should do 10 years? No, I do not. But then, I don't think the other prosecutions under the Espionage Act that Obama has gone forward with are justified either. So if Obama is the big Sheriff in town on this issue, then he's got to at least be consistent. Which would include issuing a pardon, in this case. But, I still believe, which should not include the "let's sweep it under a rug" defense.

As for Shinseki, here is my take on it (I've had to use this in numerous conversations with liberal friends, over the past week, I must admit):

Cabinet secretaries "serve at the pleasure of the president." Their jobs are largely symbolic. They do not, in fact, normally "run" their departments. The people who DO run these departments are a few levels down -- right below the bar where political appointees meet the permanent civil servants, in fact.

But a large part of the job of cabinet secretaries is to occasionally "fall on their sword" politically, to protect their president. That sounds awfully cynical, but it does not make it any less true.

Shinseki was becoming a lightning rod. He had to go. To protect Obama politically. That, sometimes, is part of the job description, like it or not.

Two further thoughts on this:

(1) Shinseki leaving was one of the nicest such oustings I've ever seen in DC. Even John McCain went out of his way to praise Shinseki personally, before calling for him to step down. Nobody hurled nasty invective, it was all "more in sorrow than in anger." Like I said, one of the most polite cabinet-level ousters I've ever seen.

(2) Obama and Dubya seem to share a common flaw: they both seem to value personal loyalty higher than they really should. For both men, if an aide is personally loyal, then they are defended past the point when it becomes obvious they have become a political liabitily. This could be seen as a positive in the character of both men, but it also has led to people staying on past the point of effectiveness. Just a non-sequitur thought...

As for me, personally, I held off for weeks in even addressing the Shinseki/VA issue. I waited for the IG's interim report. I don't call that knee-jerk, and I don't call it posing and posturing. I waited a lot longer than most to even chime in on the issue, and I resent your implication that I'm just using it to stoke partisanship. That was the farthest thing from my mind, as evidenced by my patience on even commenting on the situation for many weeks.

OK, I've made it through about half the comments, so I want to post this now. More later....

The best idea I heard in the Obamacare website fiasco was to set up a much more nimble "Federal Information Systems Agency" of some sort, to provide computer support across the entire federal govenment, so they don't wind up with systems that would have been an embarrassment even back in 1985.

In my experience, the Federal Government has an evil FISA that:

1) purchases software that hardly anybody else uses,

2) is only marginally compatible with what everybody else uses,

and

3) insists on using software well after obsolescence.

I've suffered through this with regards to word processing, math and stats engines, and graphics packages, to name a few.

Fun example. My Federally issued word processor would sometimes corrupt its own files during an automatic save. MS Word could read the corrupted files just fine, and if you saved files in MS Word format, so could the Federally issued software. But, Tech support would not allow MS Word to be installed on site. Tech support could not offer any alternative other than taking your files off site.